Day 2 of Korea

Seoul Museum of Art and Gyeongbokgung Palace

· Korea,Historical Sites,City Walks,Art Exhibits,Architecture

Day 2 – After sleeping in for a little while at the hostel, I wandered off to the Seoul Museum of Art. There were two main exhibitions at the time: one was a series of contemporary Korean artists. My favorite was an artist who used Lego-like building blocks to recreate old masters paintings in a 3D manner. The other focused on the work and life of Chun Kyung-Ja. This has apparently been a permanent exhibition since 2002. After a few hours of art viewing, I called up my friend Jeremiah. He’s an old friend currently living in Korea. We made plans to meet up when he was finished with work, and he recommended I check out Gyeongbokgung Palace until then.

The palace is just as immense as its name. I wandered around it for a few hours and didn’t actually make it to the whole thing. Most of the buildings are empty now, but it was still interesting to see the temple and the decorations of the buildings. At one point I wandered to the edge of the grounds and found the Seoul Folk Museum. I went in and checked out their exhibition of salt, how it’s made and the different varieties. There was even a salt taste testing section. They also had a permanent expo depicting the changes in people and homes in Korea over the past centuries.

After my journeying around, I met Jeremiah at one of the train stations, and we rode back to the neighborhood of my hostel. There we met up with my other friends and we all went out for BBQ (yes again, but you can never be sick of BBQ!) The rest of the night was spent with the four of us (and later some kidnapped people from our hostel) wandering around catching up and enjoying the Seoul nightlife.